


at home in being dead

by walksbyherself



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash, The Hale Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:30:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walksbyherself/pseuds/walksbyherself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek has thought of it this way before: the long line of his dead trailing behind him everywhere he goes.  </p>
<p>It’s just never been literal until now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	at home in being dead

**Author's Note:**

> The inspiration for this story was a [Graveyard Smash](http://sister-wife.livejournal.com/18299.html) prompt, _everyone here has ghosts_. Turns out I needed a little longer than the month of October to get everything right.

The repairs on the house are far enough along that Derek can afford to hole up there until the current situation is resolved. The second floor has more tarp than roof, but the downstairs is complete and this summer has been mild. All it really needs to be livable is food, which is what brought Derek to the grocery store, staring at entirely too many varieties of frozen pizza.

In the next aisle over, his cousins are arguing about breakfast cereal.

He lets the sound wash over him until their words lose all meaning; then he grabs the three nearest pizzas and heads for the other end of the store to get bread. His cousins lag behind him, the debate switching to potato chip flavors. His mother says something about fresh vegetables in his diet. He ignores her.

Someone steps out at the far end of the row. Adrian Harris stares at Derek, stares at his family, and the blood drains from his face. He abandons his cart, heading for the exit at a brisk walk. Aunt Esther shouts something after him, but all Derek can hear is static.

The girl at the checkout doesn’t say anything about his family. She just smiles with the corner of her mouth and counts out his change. Derek wonders if she’s seen a lot of people like him today. Maybe there’s someone waiting for her at home. She double-bags the milk, gives the bread its own bag so it won’t be crushed. Derek gathers everything up and thanks her before heading out to the parking lot; his family follows.

He has thought of it this way before: the long line of his dead trailing behind him everywhere he goes. 

It’s just never been literal until now.

 

On the morning of the first day, he’s out running along the boundary of the Hale property when he sees Laura. She’s keeping pace with him, hair pulled back in a ponytail and bouncing with every stride. He refuses to look, until he slows as he nears the house. 

It’s her, just as she was before she died, except that he cannot smell her and she looks faded; not quite transparent, but worn thin like an old photograph. Her smile is still bright enough to cut right through him.

The rest of them are standing on the porch. 

Aunt Cathy and Aunt Esther. Eli and Beth and Ryan. Ivy, with her red hair like their mother’s. Thomas Hale, who took his wife’s name and her bite after their wedding. 

Towering over all of them is Alexandra Hale, former alpha of Beacon Hills. She smiles. “How was your run, kiddo?”

Derek takes three steps to the side and throws up.

 

At first, he thinks it’s only happening to him, like penance or a curse, until he tries to watch the eleven o’clock news. There’s a boy standing behind the anchorwoman; ten years old at most, with glasses and a nervous little smile. She hasn’t turned around, but the trembling in her hands says she knows he’s there.

His mother makes a soft, sad sound from the other end of the couch. “Turn it off, sweetheart.”

He hates acknowledging their presence--as if a lack of response will convince them to leave--but he turns off the television and his mother reaches over to pat his hand. He can see the place where her fingers brush his skin, but he can’t feel a thing.

 

Derek wakes up early the next day and starts making calls.

“Dad’s here,” Isaac says. “I’m at Scott’s. It’s...I’m okay. Is your family with you?”

Ivy or Beth laughs somewhere in the front yard, high-pitched and happy. Laura sits up from her sprawl on the couch. “Is that Isaac? Bring the phone over here.”

“They’re around,” Derek allows. “Stay with Scott for now. I’ll check on the others.”

Erica and Boyd are at the train depot, accompanied by Boyd’s grandmother who is critiquing their living conditions. “Boyd already tried asking her where she came from,” Erica says. “She doesn’t have any idea, or at least that’s what she says. Not like you can smell the lie on a ghost.”

Deaton’s is the third number he dials, only to be greeted by the vet’s answering machine. _Out of town for a few days_ , the recording says, then provides the number of a veterinarian in the neighboring town who would be happy to assist with any emergency needs.

Derek hangs up, fingers curling around his phone until the plastic gives a warning creak and he forces himself to relax. The dead don’t seem to want anything. They aren’t even angry--

His thoughts grind to a halt that sounds like _Kate, Kate, Kate_ , Kate in his house with her smile and her rage, Kate with his _family_.

(It’s not a panic attack, but it’s the closest he’s come in a long time.)

Slowly, slowly, he remembers the empty driveway, Chris taking his daughter to stay with family for the summer. There are no Argents here, living or dead. He wishes the thought were more comforting.

 

Derek doesn’t worry about the dead--he tries not to think about them at all--until Laura goes missing. (His cousins have been vanishing intermittently for a while; Aunt Esther went with them yesterday. He assumes she went _with_ them and not just somewhere else. He didn’t ask her when she got back.)

But Laura being gone without a trace is familiar and makes him nervous. Derek drives around town with the windows down, searching. The streets are almost empty today; everyone is too reluctant now to parade their dead in front of friends and neighbors and perfect strangers, he supposes. He keeps the radio off, listens to nothing at all for the first time in days. He thinks he might have finally outrun his family this way, until he stops at a red light and sees them all standing on the corner. Ivy waves.

The light turns green. There’s no one behind him to honk. Derek lets himself wave back before continuing down the block.

Eventually, he pulls to a stop outside the park and wonders why he hadn’t thought of it sooner.

(Laura liked to come here after school; she’d hang out with her friends, get involved in pick-up frisbee matches, or just do her homework. Derek hadn’t understood. They had plenty of acres around the house for all that stuff, but Laura said it was about being near other people, ones who weren’t pack but were still their responsibility. “We’re the Beacon Hills pack,” she’d say. “They’re Beacon Hills.”)

There’s a bench alongside a jogging path, a huge stone slab donated by the Beacon Hills High School Class of ‘72. Laura is sitting on one corner, her dark hair like a watercolor stain against the sky. All the way at the other end is Peter. Derek’s hands curl into claws on the empty air.

By the time he makes it halfway to the bench, Laura is already standing. Derek draws up short. He can’t see Peter’s face from this angle, can’t read his expression when he says, “You always did look so much like Sasha.”

Laura hunches her shoulders, looking away. “Goodbye, Uncle Peter.” She puts her hands in the pockets of her jacket and heads back down the path towards Derek. She murmurs “hey” as she passes him, tacking on a quick, thin smile. Derek watches her go. By the time he decides to just follow her and not interrogate Peter, she’s already walked right past his car and gone two blocks farther.

“Have you figured it out yet?” Peter calls. “Why they’re all here?”

Derek tenses, glancing back, but shakes his head.

“I thought it was you, at first. You like to punish yourself enough. But Laura said you’ve barely spoken to anyone.” Peter sips his coffee. “The good witch doctor was gone long before this started, so there’s really only one person, isn’t there?”

Derek’s lip curls, part of him eager for the normalcy of an argument with his uncle. The town could be crawling with witches; they don’t know any better because they haven’t been inclined to court trouble during the post-Alpha-Pack lull and seek them out. Aunt Cathy always said--

He snaps the thought in half, lets it fall.

Ultimately, Peter is right. Derek knows his own luck. There’s only one person.

 

Stiles isn’t in his room. There are books scattered across his bed, the oldest smelling strongly of earth. Derek can hear voices downstairs; Stiles’ own and one other. A woman.

He really doesn’t want to have to do this.

Derek finds them sitting at the kitchen table. They glance at him when he leans against the doorframe, but neither seems particularly surprised to see him. Stiles is telling a story about lacrosse practice; Derek remembers hearing it last week, so he doesn’t bother paying attention to the words now, only the gestures of Stiles’ hands and the rhythm of his voice.

He waits for a pause he knows is coming before he says, “Stiles, she isn’t real.”

Stiles won’t look at him. “I know,” he replies. “But she’s my mom.”

The woman turns as if that’s her cue. “You must be Derek.” She has her son’s eyes. “I’m Jenna Stilinski.” She holds out a hand. Derek takes a step back.

“ _Derek_.” Stiles’ mouth twists, angry and embarrassed.

“It’s alright, sweetheart.” She has her son’s smile, too. “It’s nothing personal, I’m sure.”

Derek ignores her. “How much longer?”

“One more day,” Stiles says. “A week was all I could afford.”

Distantly, Derek wonders how you pay for such a thing. (A box buried at a crossroads, or blood spilled from the vein under a new moon. A year of your life. Or something else, something older and uglier and much more patient that will wait to present a bill until the worst possible time.)

Instead of asking, he says, “That’s all I needed to know.” He can’t help adding “Ma’am” and nodding briefly in Mrs. Stilinski’s direction as an attempt at manners, because he did have them once (his mother taught him) but right now he needs to get the fuck out of this house.

Derek leaves through the front door. None of his family are waiting for him in the yard; he doesn’t want to think about why. 

 

Derek hears him coming, but he thinks that if he never answers the door it will be enough. The doorbell hasn’t been wired yet, so Stiles can only knock. One-two-three, then a long pause. One-two-three. Derek sits at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for him to give up. One-two-three. 

“Hey!” Laura’s voice in the yard. Derek startles, thinking for a moment she might be shouting at him.

“Hey, Laura,” Stiles answers. He sounds tired. He does not sound surprised to see Laura. Derek feels his mouth open, feels the questions building about how easy those words sound for Stiles and where else his sister might have been going when he took his eyes off her.

“Derek, Stiles is here!” Laura calls, as if he couldn’t hear the knocking, can’t hear every word they say.

Stiles laughs, dry as summer. “I don’t think he wants to talk to me right now.”

In Derek’s mind, he can hear Laura shrug. “Where’s your mom?” she asks.

“With my dad,” Stiles says. There’s only silence for a moment, then Derek hears Stiles kicking through the dried grass and leaf litter as he walks around the side of the house. Laura’s voice keeps pace with him; she tells stories about playing tag with her human cousins until Stiles laughs.

Derek gets up and follows the sound, mirroring Laura and Stiles’ path from inside. The curtains are drawn and the lights are low enough for his shadow not to give him away. Eli brushes past him in the hall, rolling his eyes; Derek curls his lip in a mock snarl, the way he always used to, and it’s almost normal.

Laura and Stiles have rounded the corner by the time Derek reaches the kitchen. There are no curtains here to hide behind, but they don’t notice him, staring instead at Alexandra Hale who stands firmly in their path. Laura yields immediately, slipping away with a tilt of her head. Stiles shifts his weight, ready to leave with her, until Derek’s mother says, “We need to talk, son.” 

Stiles lifts his chin. “Of course, Alpha Hale.” He tips his head the way Laura had, showing just enough throat to be considered respectful but not submissive. It’s an old courtesy; Stiles has been doing his homework.

Derek hears his mother laugh for the first time in six years. “You little shit,” she says, amused and maybe fond. Derek can’t tell. “Take a walk with me.” 

They turn their backs on him and head off into the woods, side by side, voices pitched too low for his ears to catch. 

“You wanna go eavesdrop?”

Derek takes a breath before he turns, bracing himself for the sight of Laura standing beside him. “No,” he tells her. “She’d just catch us.”

“Bet she would,” Laura says. “Even now.”

Derek makes a low sound of agreement. Laura boosts herself up to sit on the counter. “Talk to me, little brother.” Her usual shit-eating grin falls away until she’s just his sister. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Slowly, he does.

 

The sun is starting to set by the time Stiles and Alexandra return, and Derek isn’t the only one waiting for them. Jenna Stilinski is in the backyard, arms folded low across her stomach. 

“Your boy’s a troublemaker, Jenna,” Alexandra calls out.

Mrs. Stilinski smiles, sharp and almost wolfish. “No worse than yours.”

Stiles jogs the last few steps, drawing to an unsteady halt where muscle memory would have him flinging himself at his mother, letting her body take his weight. Mrs. Stilinski opens her arms and Stiles steps into them. She folds him into a hug, hands clutching at Stiles’ back while he slides his arms around waist. It would be picture perfect, if you could ignore the fact that they’re not really touching and the look on Stiles’ face. His eyes are screwed tightly shut, his lip caught between his teeth. He’s not crying, not yet, but his expression is desperate and raw. It’s too much to see; Derek recoils from the kitchen window, slinks back into the living room and takes a seat on the couch. If he tried, he could catch the faint thread of conversation from outside, but he ignores it.

The back door opens and closes. Stiles kicks his sneakers off and flops down beside Derek without a word. The silence stretches between them until Derek breaks it.

“I don’t blame you for this,” he says.

“I wouldn’t care if you did.”

Derek expects to hear a lie, but the words all ring true, in time with Stiles’ heartbeat beneath them.

The boy fiddles with the hem of his shirt, eyes lowered. “Why don’t you like having them here? I know it’s not...not easy, I mean, you should have seen my face--” His voice cracks; he barrels forward, ignorant of Derek’s flinch. “You should have seen my face when it...when she...I cried for like an hour. But it’s different with you. You really hate it, don’t you?” When Derek doesn’t correct him, he adds, “ _Why_?”

Derek considers not answering. Eventually, he says, “Because they’re not going to stay.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, a soft exhale as he leans into Derek’s side, crumpling like something wounded. Derek fits his arm around Stiles’ shoulders and thinks about the price the boy paid to have this.

“That’s not...You shouldn’t try to change that,” Derek adds, because he feels it needs saying.

“I won’t.” Stiles’ voice is thick in his throat. “But it was worth it.”

The sun is disappearing below the horizon. The house is getting quieter. Stiles dozes with his head on Derek’s shoulder; his fitful shifts and starts soothed by the slow drag of Derek’s fingers up and down his arm. The motion lulls Derek in his turn, though he doesn’t notice until he jerks his head up, half a name and the taste of ash caught in his mouth. 

The living room is dark. Stiles’ breathing is deep and even beside him, one of his hands curled in Derek’s shirt. From the other end of the room, someone says, “Hush, sweetheart.” 

Someone else says, “Good night, boys.” 

Derek leans back against the cushions and closes his eyes.

 

When he wakes, it’s morning and the house is silent.

“They’re gone.” Stiles is sitting up, tying his shoes. He’s at the other end of the couch; Derek didn’t even feel him move.

“It’s--” _Too quiet_ , he almost says. He did the right thing. He didn’t let his ghosts move back into his life anymore than they already have; he’s kept them locked in a space beneath his ribs since the fire and they _fit_ there. He can manage them there. 

He did the right thing and his house is too quiet because of it, so he asks, “Do you want to stay?”

Stiles’ heartbeat stutters, speeds up. He winds his fingers in the loops of his shoelaces until the skin bleaches bloodless.

“No,” comes the answer at last, faint, almost regretful. “Not today.”

“Okay,” Derek says, like it’s easy.

(It’s going to be so quiet today. Maybe he can convince Isaac to come over; they could work on the second floor. Or Boyd and Erica, if Isaac doesn’t want to leave Scott’s just yet. Even Peter.

Derek has had six years to pull himself together and that’s plenty of time, isn’t it? Plenty of time, provided that the objects of your grief don’t pay you a visit and fill in all the gaps that memory has blurred. Keeping himself apart was the only way to stay safe. They understood that. He knows they did, because they always understood _him_. 

The twisting feeling in his gut won’t abate. His lungs feel too small.)

“Hey.” Stiles’ hand curls lightly over the nape of Derek’s neck. “Tomorrow, maybe?”

Derek breathes. “Tomorrow sounds good.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Rainer Maria Rilke's "Requiem For a Friend":
> 
> I have my dead, and I have let them go,  
> and was amazed to see them so contented,  
> so soon at home in being dead, so cheerful,  
> so unlike their reputation. Only you  
> return; brush past me, loiter, try to knock  
> against something, so that the sound reveals  
> your presence. Oh don't take from me what I  
> am slowly learning...


End file.
